


In your afterglow

by wolfsan11



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Benevolent old men who help out, First Kiss, Flower Pressing, Flowers, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Grief, Happy Ending, He's a giant sap, Language of Flowers, Love Confessions, M/M, Mostly Canon Compliant, Mutual Pining, Pining, Post S2, Post-Kerberos Mission, Pre-Kerberos Mission, Sap hehe, Sheith Spring Flower Exchange, Shiro loves flowers you guys, hints of depression, this is happy i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-10-31 07:53:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10894989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfsan11/pseuds/wolfsan11
Summary: Keith learned he was in love with Shiro long before he could muster the courage to do anything about it. Their journey is one that winds through gains and losses, through falling apart and coming back together. And sometimes, it includes the occasional flower.





	In your afterglow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JustToast](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustToast/gifts).



> Sheith Spring Flower Exchange gift for JustToast or @Rengulus on twitter :D  
> I'm so sorry I'm late! But...I'm here now?  
> I'm super, super sorry for the angst but I couldn't help myself! It's an important part of the story and I had to have it in. But if it helps, the fluff is kind of sappy?? There's a happy ending, I promise!!  
> Hope you enjoy :)
> 
> *collapses*  
> 11k dudes. This was never supposed to be more than 4k...This is officially my longest fic :O
> 
> p.s. I use the dd/mm/yyyy format for the date here

Of the things Keith knows about Shiro, the latest fact is one that both takes him by surprise and leaves him shaking his head in fondness: Shiro loves plants. Like, really, _really_ loves plants.

There are photos all over his dorm walls, of his garden from back home, of wild blooms in the desert and rare species he’d come across while on a walk, or ones he’d spotted somewhere else and couldn’t help but capture in his phone.

The little succulent on his desk is the only concession he’s allowed by the Garrison (of course Shiro had gone the good boy route and actually asked), and Keith learns that Shiro, left to his own devices, would easily flood his room with hundreds of plants.

Keith doesn’t know what to make of it, beyond an initial wayward thought of ‘ _adorable’_ which he’d immediately shoved away into a dark corner of his mind, folded and stuffed under the debris of other things he doesn’t want to think about.

It was just…Shiro got so disarmingly enthusiastic when it came to plants; grey eyes brightened, cheeks flushed, a wide dimpled smile crossing his face. That kind of innocence deserved to be protected.

 

* * *

 

Over the weekends, when they’re not slaving away in simulations, assignments and terror-inducing group projects, Shiro will get that look in his eyes, the one that means he needs to get away for a while; to not be Takashi Shirogane, the Garrison Star, but just…Shiro.

On days like that, Keith is his best enabler.

On days like that, they would grab Shiro’s hoverbike (passed down as it was, from his late father), a bag of snacks and their helmets, and they’d take off into the town or out into the desert more often than not, the shadows cast by the imposing institute left far behind them. Sometimes, Shiro would drive. Most times, like now, it would be Keith at the controls.

There’s a sense of freedom in flying out amongst the solitary sand dunes with just the two of them; a beauty in seeing the early morning light glimmering pale gold over the dips and slopes of the land; an ease in shaking off the whipping cold wind that slices against his cheeks and nips at his skin even through the thick warmth of his jacket.

And then, there’s the devastating combination of all three in feeling those familiar arms wrapped around his waist, the breath against his neck, the heartbeat against his back; in being able to absorb and revel in it without the accompanying guilt crashing over him.

Out here, with his face turned towards the horizon and Shiro behind him, Keith can feel it all, and no one has to know.

 

* * *

 

Sometimes, Keith thinks he hates the desert. Right now, sitting under the hot afternoon sun and watching Shiro root through a brush of wildflowers, he’s at least 70% sure of it.

Shiro stand up from his crouch and throws Keith a grin, clutching a cluster of tiny white flowers in his hands.

“Aaaand the white ones go to the lovely gentleman in the red jacket!” he announces in his best auctioneer’s voice. Which is the only polite way to describe Shiro’s terrible, butchered version of a ‘proper’ English accent.

Keith sends him a flat look and crosses his arms over his chest.

“No thanks.”

Shiro visibly wilts, much as the flowers in his hands are doing already. Technically, they were pretty, even with the brown of age encroaching over the curling white petals.

“But Keith, I picked them just for you!” he wheedles, flapping his hand in Keith’s face, flowers and all. Keith wrinkles his nose as one of the large petals come loose, and flutters down to rest in the sand at his feet. He looks up again with a raised eyebrow and meets Shiro’s sheepish gaze.

“Okay, maybe I’ll find you a better one first,” Shiro concedes as he turns away. Keith blinks at him and sits back on the rock he’s perched on, leaning his weight on his arms.

It was by far the weirdest of their adventures thus far.

Driving out into the desert, they’d had no specific destination, and Keith had simply followed the path before him, taking them farther away across the sands, farther away from the Garrison.

Then, they’d come across the cave.

It was a tiny place, a dark hole against the burnt orange of the cliff side, with nothing special to mark it out. Except Keith had wanted to explore, felt the need to get closer and see what was inside. There was something about the cave that pulled at him, and his curiousity had always been too strong to resist.

Of course, Shiro had put an immediate end to that with cautious remarks about scorpions and poisonous snakes, and Keith had just about whirled around in the opposite direction. Then Shiro had spotted the flowers near the mouth of the cave and…well. Here they were.

Shiro keeps humming away mindlessly, squatting down by the shrub again, rubbing his fingers over the soft white petals as he inspects each one for faults. Keith shakes his head, bemused.

Just another Shiro thing, he supposes.

 

* * *

 

Shiro does hand him a new flower in the end. He presents it with a silly grin and flourish, says “Desert flowers are amazing. Masters of adapting, huh?” and Keith takes it with a confused grumble, forces himself to not read too much into the gesture.

Later, back in their rooms, he does not keep it in a paper cup by his window sill, where the sunlight hits it just right so it glows an opaque white. He does not stare at it in between study breaks, and he certainly does not trace over the petals with his fingers, imagining that he’s following the trail of fingerprints left behind by Shiro.

And when it starts drying up, leaves turned brittle under his hesitant touch, he does not reverently place it in one of his worn textbooks from flight school, hidden away from unwelcome eyes.

He doesn’t do any of that at all.

 

* * *

 

It’s in one of those escapades in the town, this time in an open street market, when Keith finds it. He’s wandering by the stalls and keeping a vague eye on Shiro, who’s standing a few meters ahead of him, towering above the rest of the crowd as he checks out a table full of strange crystals.

That’s when he sees it.

The stall is a little dinky and covered in bright, colourful hangings, selling second-hand books and miscellaneous items. What draws him is a book at the top of a pile.

The cover is cloth, dyed a deep purple and black with a splatter of reddish-pink in the center, as though the dye had faded or been leeched out. Delicate silver stitching creates a splatter of tiny stars, lines marking out a vague constellation; he’s not sure which one.

Keith stares at the book intently, picks it up and flicks through the thick, off-white pages. Images flutter at the back of his mind, of a foster home from long before. He thinks of a woman in dirt-covered overalls, flattening out a flower with utmost focus, talking in bright tones about preserving parts of nature for their eyes alone. It’s an old memory, one of many, but it shines through now as he weighs the book in his hands.

“You gonna buy that?”

Keith blinks, pulled out of his trance and realizes it’s the seller, a short teenager slouched in her seat at the head of the table, lazily chewing on gum as she stares at him with suspicion. He hesitates for a moment, his eyes flitting to Shiro again, and he quickly spots him in front of a florists’. There’s sheer delight on his face as he pores over the sprays and potted plants set out onto the cobbled pathway.

He’s already bought a bouquet wrapped in cellophane, the tiny blossoms bell-shaped and delicate in contrast to his large hands. It’s ridiculous.

(It’s endearing.)

With a sigh, Keith turns back to the girl.

“I’ll take it.”

 

* * *

 

“Here.”

Keith doesn’t think he’s ever felt more embarrassed; his neck and cheeks heat up as he holds out the book for Shiro. He hopes it’s not very visible under the dim light from the table lamp.

They’re seated on the end of Shiro’s bed, returned from their jaunt in town. The flowers – freesia, Shiro had called them – sit in a small bowl beside his succulent, filling the room with a fresh, sweet scent. Maybe that’s what had gotten into his head enough that he’d been encouraged to show Shiro his gift immediately.

Shiro blinks at the offering and his jaw drops a little. His cheekbones are illuminated gold against black, features dipped in shadows where the light does not reach him (and Keith privately thinks that both suit him well. Black enhances, but gold…gold truly represents him).

“Is…is this for me?” Shiro asks, pointing at himself.

Keith nods and pushes the book into his hands, letting his arms drop as Shiro takes the gift.

“I thought…you keep buying all those flowers or picking them up when we’re out and I thought maybe you’d want to…Save some of them? More permanently I mean, like, all in one place. I know some people like to press flowers so maybe you’d-”

Keith cuts himself off and presses his lips together, feeling incredibly foolish. He lifts his shoulders in an awkward shrug.

“It’s stupid, I know-”

“I love it.”

Keith’s mouth snaps shut and when he looks up, Shiro is smiling at him, a little awed and happy, eyes crinkling in the corners.

Something in Keith’s chest expands at the sight and he lets out a gusty breathe, mind racing through a million different thoughts all at once.

“My father…he used to do it all the time,” Shiro says quietly, and Keith feels the twinge in his own heart at that voice. “He had a bunch of these gorgeous journals, and he’d use them to preserve some of the best flowers from our garden. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it myself.”

Shiro thumbs over the silver stitched stars on the cover, caught for a moment longer in bittersweet nostalgia. Then he looks up, face soft and so _grateful_ that Keith can only watch on, helpless.

“ _Thank you_ , Keith. I’ll treasure this.”

“I…you’re welcome,” he manages to answer, with only the slightest fumble.

Keith’s aware that the vague warm sensation in his chest has been present before, for a while now. He’s in way too deep. And he knows, already. There’s no climbing out of this pit when he’s the one willfully pushing himself back in.

 

* * *

 

Pressing flowers takes time, weeks even, because Shiro insists on doing it the old-fashioned way. Between everyday duties, classes and the sudden load of increasing expectations looming over Shiro’s head, it’s a while before they get the opportunity to put the book to use. But Shiro is patient and devoted, handling it with the same care and sincere effort he applies to every aspect of his life.

“Patience yield focus,” he says, and Keith rolls his eyes and shoves him lightly with his shoulder.

Keith’s there for the first time (and every time after) he successfully peels off a dried flower from between the textbooks without tearing it; he’s there for the way Shiro pumps his fist in victory, throwing a goofy smile in his direction.

Shiro was always doing that: giving his smiles to anyone who needed them, and even then besides.

It’s no wonder Keith had fallen in love, and he doesn’t quite regret it. Even if that means occasionally squashing down the fluttering in his stomach, just so he can function around Shiro. He’s not scared of…of anything, really. But this is something he needs to keep to himself. For Shiro’s sake, and his own.

 

* * *

 

When the announcement comes in, no one is surprised by it, least of all Keith.

Takashi Shirogane is chosen as the lead pilot for the Kerberos Mission.

 

* * *

 

“Congratulations on Kerberos. I knew you could do it.”

“Thanks, Keith.”

“So, what are you gonna bring back for me?”

“And what makes you think I’ll bring anything back for you?”

“Oh, come on. It doesn’t have to be big.”

“Well, I could bring you back a hunk of ice.”

“…Oh. Right.”

“I’ll get you ice.”

“Shiro. No.”

“Nope, too late, I’m getting you a block of ice, Keith, take it or leave it.”

“I don’t know, Shirogane, I think you might need it more than me. For your bruises.”

“Wait, wha-Ouch! Okay, okay, I was kidding, take it easy! No, no, no _ticklin-!_ ”

 

* * *

 

When Shiro leaves for Kerberos, he gives Keith two last things: the keys to his hoverbike and the book. Standing out in a hallway is not the most conventional place for a goodbye, but it’s better than amongst a crowd of strangers.

“Hang onto these for me?”

“Shiro, I…I can’t. I can’t ta-”

“Of course you can. You can take the bike for a spin like we used to, get away from the Garrison on the weekends.”

Blinking down at the keys in his hands, Keith shakes his head and tries to give it back, but Shiro won’t hear of it.

“I’ll need someone to take care of it while I’m away, and keep it safe until I get back. And you’re the only I _want_ to give it to. As for the book, well…you can fill it up for me if you’d like to.”

Keith firmly does not examine Shiro’s statement, shifting his focus to the book instead. He holds it gingerly and finds it bulkier than it used to be. His palms are sweating as he opens it to the latest addition, half the pages having already been filled.

White, bell-shaped flowers.

A freesia, he remembers, the one flower Shiro kept going back to after that first bouquet. It’s not from the same florists’ as last time, but still just as pretty.

“My favourite,” Shiro murmurs, gaze fixed on the book between them.

Keith feels his face heat up, for no reason that he can fathom. There was just something about the way Shiro was standing so close to him, his voice low and tender in its gentle lull. He shakes it off and takes an unsteady breath, leans back subtly to get some air.

He’s learned by now that each of the flowers have some significance to Shiro, deeper than Keith himself knows besides the fact that it has something to do with the language of flowers.

It’s a little like having Shiro’s soul in his hands, entrusted to him. A silly notion, and yet he knows the enormity of it. He may have been the one to gift him the book, the shell of it, but the inside? That was all Shiro.

“I’ll keep it safe,” he says, lifting his chin to square his gaze with Shiro’s, “Both of them. Take ‘em from me when you get back.”

He’s not prepared for when Shiro moves in and hugs him. He stiffens against the arms around him, just for a moment, and then they’re breaking apart and he wishes he’d reacted better and held on.

Shiro pats him on the shoulder, holding on for a second more than necessary. 

“I know Keith,” he whispers, “I trust you.”

There’s a hard lump in Keith’s throat that he can’t swallow past suddenly. He’s left mute, watching as Shiro grabs his bags and gives him a final affectionate smile before he turns and walks away. Keith stares after Shiro’s retreating back, not daring to blink until he’s gone.

His steps are wooden as he makes his way to the dorms, a quiet hollowness digging into him.

But no. No, he’s happy for Shiro, he truly is. He isn’t about to sit around and mope when his best friend is getting to live his dreams at last.

The book sits heavy in his hands, the keys jangling in his pocket as he moves. On impulse, he furiously reiterates the promise he’d made Shiro, cementing it in his mind. He has every intention of honouring it.

 

* * *

 

It takes months before Keith braves the trip to the town alone. News had come in of the Orion being due to touch down on Kerberos soon, and it feels like a good day to do this. At the florists’ though, Keith stands in front of a row of neatly-trimmed unidentifiable plants and comes to the conclusion that he has absolutely no idea what he’s doing.

“Can I help you, kid?”

Keith tries not to yelp, but it’s a near thing. The elderly florist who’d been at the counter when he entered the shop was stood by his elbow, watching him curiously. The man is dressed in a white shirt and dark pants, a green uniform apron tied around his neck and waist.

“You’ve been wandering around the plants for a while now. Is there something I can help you find?”

Embarrassment curls in Keith’s chest at the straightforward question. Here he is, taking up Shiro’s task as he’d promised, and yet he’s only now realizing how unprepared he is.

“I, uh…I was looking for a flower but…”

The old man tilts his head, putting a hand to his chin in contemplation.

“Any type you had in mind? I assume it’s a gift for someone?”

He’s sure he’s reaching dangerous levels of redness by now, judging by the look of alarm the man gives him.

“I…I guess, yes. It’s for a friend.”

“Well then, I have a few you might like. Right this way.”

Near the front of the store, there are buckets of flowers set out in display, from pale pastel pinks and blues to bright yellow and red. The man reaches in and plucks out a few yellow roses, presenting them to Keith.

“These are the favourites among our customers, a classic for the message of friendship. Does your friend have a name?” he asks conversationally.

“Uh, his name is Shiro,” Keith replies, busy in inspecting the roses. He’s startled for the second time that day as the man lets out a loud exclamation.

“Shiro! Then would you happen to be Keith?”

Keith fumbles the flowers in his hand, just barely keeping them from slipping through his hold.

“H-how did you know that?” he blurts, squinting at the man. The florist waves his hands at him as though to sooth him.

“Shiro is a regular of mine, always a downright joy to have him here. He’s mentioned you a few times, said that you’re the one who sparked his interest in pressing flowers. I suppose I have to thank you for sending me my best customer, kid.”

Keith relaxes a little at the simple explanation, though the idea that Shiro had talked about _him_ …He clears his throat, but the man is speaking again before he can say anything.

“I’m James King by the way, the owner of this store. You said this is a gift for him?”

Ah shit. There came that blush again, and the man certainly didn’t miss it, though he was tactfully silent about it as Keith gave him a tight nod.

“Well then, how about something a little nicer for Shiro, hm?” King says, already taking away the roses from him and setting them aside. Keith lets him, wondering just what he was getting himself into. Nonetheless, he follows King to another array of buckets near the main door.

Where is he anyway, he hasn’t been by in a while,” King says, as he sifts through the flowers, shaking his head at one or two of them.

“Well, he’s…in space? On his mission…”

“Oh! Right, right, I’d forgotten about that. So are you planning to preserve these for him?”

Keith utters a clipped ‘yes’ and tries not to feel insulted on Shiro’s behalf, because honestly. Who could just _forget_ about the story of the youngest pilot in the history of space navigation embarking on the mission of the decade? Specifically, the mission to the edge of their solar system, the farthest point of explored space thus far?

It was _impossible_ to miss, especially with the whole media circus surrounding it. King didn’t seem to notice his glare though, picking up a bundle of white flowers with a triumphant grin.

“Here you go, son. Check ‘em out, I think you’ll like these.”

Keith accepts them and touches the petals with care. The flowers are pretty, of course; a star-shaped whorl of dewy white petals, pale yellow at the center. More than himself, though, he wonders if Shiro would like them.

“These are gardenias,” says King, and Keith looks up in time to see the man give him a rather gentle smile, creasing the wrinkles at his eyes. “They denote purity, but they are also known to be associated with friendship and trust, hopes and dreams. Back in the old days, they were used to send a message of love to the recipient. The gardenia with the yellow tinge at its base though-”

Keith swallows, feeling his hands tremble as King pins him with his gaze.

“-those symbolize secret love, a shared love that cannot be spoken of freely.”

The silence that falls over them is smothering in its intensity, neither of them speaking, until there’s a chime of bells as the front doors open.

“Mr. King? I hope you have that wedding bouquet ready, Sheela’s going insane with stress!”

The loud voice breaks the strange atmosphere that had built up, and King sighs, eyes still lingering on Keith.

“Think over it. Alright, kid?” he says, before walking off to meet the customer awaiting him.

Keith lets out a slow exhale, gripping the stem of the flowers tighter. He’s not certain what to feel about being read so easily, or to receive love advice from a veritable stranger. The sweet fragrance of the gardenias wafts up to him, fresh and somewhat comforting, and he loosens his hold, exhaustion hitting hard as he drags himself to the counter.

When he leaves the store, it’s with the bundle of gardenias in his hand, and a growing turmoil in his heart.

 

* * *

 

Keith only ever puts the one flower into the book; pressing in itself feels more like a chore to him, and without Shiro? It’s just not as fun anymore, and definitely not his thing. Even with the millions of miles gap between them, he can’t stop connecting every one of his experiences to Shiro, no matter how much it makes him squirm to think it.

Shiro had been the one to bring him out of his reclusiveness, encourage him to leave behind the cloaked loneliness he wore, to trust in the comfort of a friendship that he could believe in. He’d been there for him, every step of the way. It was understandable then, right? How much of his life in the Garrison led inevitably to thoughts of Shiro?

Right.

So he does just the one flower, mostly to ease his own conscience. He presses the gardenia using his thickest textbook, doesn’t dare touch it for three weeks straight until he’s anxious enough to check the results. Delight fills him when he sees it’s beautifully flattened, translucent yet vibrant too.

He peels it off slowly, wincing with every tug that almost breaks it. And when he has it in the book, safe from his clumsy hands, he shuts the cover and shoves it far away from him, with the resolve to never look at it again.

Now, at least, he has the reassurance of having done that much. He has left something of his presence, somewhere, for Shiro to find on his return. Shiro, who would probably see the flower and understand what it meant, immediately.

Well…why not?

Maybe. Maybe after everything, after Shiro came back... Keith could muster up the courage to confess. Just…maybe.

 

* * *

 

The news comes the day after, in the quivering baritone of Commander Iverson: Orion, the Kerberos Lunar Vessel is gone.

Crash. Pilot error. All crew dead.

Keith doesn’t quite remember walking out of the hall and down the corridors, away from the cries of shock, the murmurs of people coming together to mourn. His fists swing at his sides, twitching with the need to be hurtled against the wall. His eyes remain dry.

 

* * *

 

Keith thinks he does a rather great job of holding himself together for the next three weeks. He hears that phrase thrown about often, ‘pilot error’ and ‘Shiro’ inextricably linked in the same sentence, but he blocks it out as best as he can. He doesn’t know the explanation, doesn’t know what to think, but he knows one fact: Shiro would never have made such an error.

In the end though, it gets to him, and it’s not even the installment of the new Kerberos rescue simulator that does it. It’s flying it.

Keith’s hands shake on the controls, like they haven’t done since his first month at the Garrison. It shows too, as the ship unsteadily traverses the distance to the moon.

He can hear his comm spec hailing the missing crew, feels his heart beat faster, harder into his ribcage. There’s something uncomfortable skittering over his skin, pulling it tight and strangely itchy, but he can’t get his arms free to scratch when he’s flying or he’ll wreck and fail his entire team. His breathing grows shallow just imagining it, chest pinching tight, the obstacles in front of him growing indistinct and hazy because suddenly there isn’t enough air in the cockpit and he can’t breathe, can’t see, can’t move, he’s suffocating on nothing and wondering if this is what Shiro’s last moments must have felt li-

“KOGANE!”

There’s a sharp sting across his cheek and he gasps, brought back to awareness with a hard jolt. His vision sways and lands on his engineers’ face. The girl stands over him, looking somewhere between impatient and concerned.

“Dude, are you okay?”

“What the hell happened?”

The cockpit is dark, and it dawns on him too slow, too sluggish. They had crashed.

He scrambles up and barely makes it out before he’s on the floor on all fours, heaving up his breakfast.

The other cadets exclaim in disgust and leap away from him. He shivers, his stomach clenching painfully tight and bringing up another round of sick.

“Alright, alright, back off cadets! Just let it all out, son.”

A hand pats him roughly on the back and his mind registers ‘Iverson’, but the rest of him is flung to the last time Shiro had touched him and he sobs.

“Someone get him to the infirmary! You, Garrett. Go on, take him.”

He’s wrestled on to his feet, a large arm around him to help him up.

“Kogane,” Iverson barks after him as they leave, “Come back when you’re better, you hear?”

Keith says nothing, just lets himself get dragged away down the hall by the tall boy. Hunk, he thinks his name is.

The boy is rambling about something, “I get sick a lot too man, it’s okay, nothing to freak about” and he tunes him out, tries to think of nothing at all.

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t get better.

 

* * *

 

Keith remembers all too clearly how it felt to be hopelessly drawn in by a force, one that he could not have fought off because of its source.

This time isn’t like that. This time, he’s caught in an inevitable slide down into drowning, and no matter how much he tries to swim and claw his way back up, he never seems to be able to find the light above him, his head never breaching the waters, lungs never finding that precious air.

Some days he can’t push himself out of bed enough to get to class, let alone fly a clean simulator run. Iverson glowers at him the more he messes up, but he doesn’t say anything, which is a blessing Keith did not expect. Then again, it doesn’t matter either way.

Slowly, it begins to seep into every aspect of his life. Skipped lectures, missed assignments, uniform infractions, absence from meal times, building up and up and up until it can no longer be ignored.

“Keith, I understand you’re grieving for your friend-”

“It’s been months, Cadet.”

“We can’t keep giving you free passes Kogane.”

“If you don’t start shaping up-”

It’s like he’s taken a dive straight back to how it’d been before meeting Shiro. His anger gets a hold of him at the worst moments, with short outbursts against classmates, professors, staff, anyone who is in his sight at the time.

No. No, this is much worse than he’d ever been.

He doesn’t want to be like this. God, he _wants_ to be better, better than what people are whispering about him now, better than the path that countless foster parents used to predict for him.

But he doesn’t know how. It grows worse with every well-meaning condolence and the less well-meaning ones, the forceful interventions and constant questioning. Because in the end, Shiro is still _gone_ and his mind is trapped in the past with that particular stark fact for company; he can’t see a path around it.

 

* * *

 

When the announcement comes in, no one is surprised by it, least of all Keith.

Keith Kogane is asked to leave the Garrison.

He walks away without a backward glance because in there, there are only nightmares that serve to trip him up and strangle him when he least expects it.

In the desert, it’s different. He has recollections of them flying over the dunes, of poking fun at Shiro’s hobby or Keith’s windswept hair, of a million-and-one conversations about family and dreams and stars. Out here, it’s almost safer, a place where he can imagine that his world hasn’t just been tilted into a vat of acid, permanent, unforgiving, scarring.

With a single bag in hand and everything that is left of Shiro’s life boxed up and tucked under his arm, he’s gone.

He takes the hoverbike with him.

 

* * *

 

The old shack is welcoming and forbidding; an entity teeming with raw familiarity despite the boarded up windows and broken façade. Keith has to kick the door several times to get it unstuck, until it swings open abruptly, slams against the wall and sends up a cloud of dust that leaves him coughing. Shoving his t-shirt over his nose, he steps over a hole in the floor and takes in the sight of his childhood home.

Barely anything has changed; it’s the same old layout, the same old furniture and walls, under a thick layer of dust, sand and cobwebs. There’s the enraged squeak of a critter as it scrambles away from the moonlight that filters in from behind him.

A step backwards, and a steady spiral down.

Swallowing a sigh, Keith dumps his bag onto the floor, sets down the box with marginally more care, and makes to clean up the house as best as he can. Even then, there’s only so much he can do without electricity, without heat, without sustenance and energy to keep him going.

He survives that first night huddled under his jacket, foregoing the couch to slump against a wall instead, holding the box of Shiro’s effects close to himself. Tries valiantly to ignore the sour taste of failure, of coming right back here after promising to never return.

What would his father think? What would Shiro…

Sleep taunts him, elusive, bringing nothing but distinct fear and confusing images that whip past him, undecipherable. The moonlight edges further and further away as the night moves on, leaving him in darkness. He gives up well before dawn, thinking quietly of routine and morning wake-up calls.

Restless with a jittery and tiresome tension, Keith gets to his feet at last with one purpose in mind. It doesn’t take much to persuade himself to stuff the box away under his make-shift table of a slab supported by cinderblocks. It’s his attic too, for things he cannot keep in sight (for his own sanity, really). He won’t be pulling it back out anytime soon.

Then, as soon as the sun is settled high enough in the sky, he heads out into town, maneuvering the hoverbike through the streets. He flies past the florists’ and averts his face, not prepared to see it just yet, or to be recognised.

A job. He’s here for a job and a new start, nothing more.

 

* * *

 

That first month, Keith works himself into the ground helping out at a small garage, taking multiple shifts, pushing and straining past his limits until even his boss starts advising him to take it down a notch.

He gathers himself then, if only to keep the job. But then it’s a problem of what he’s meant to with the rest of his hours, his to do with as he pleases. While most of it goes into fixing up the shack, to staying busy and unthinking, there are moments he breaks and allows himself to remember.

In the shack, it’s about his father. Warm hands combing through his hair, affection, being hefted up onto a strong hip, thick arm pulling him close and embracing him. Whispered words drifting through his ears carrying the stories of love for the mother he didn’t know. It crowds in closest on certain nights when he lies back on the couch, vulnerable even in the four walls of his home.

Out in the desert, though, he retraces the ghosts of himself and Shiro and follows the old paths they used to take. The first time Keith goes back to that old cave (and finds, to his dismay, that the shrub of flowers is gone), he feels the pulse of that energy pulling at him again. It brings him to a wondering pause.

So it had been real. He wants to dismiss it, play it off as the desert heat getting to his head, but it’s there, irrefutable, lodged against his beating heart.

Keith’s disbelief in the weird and unwelcome had unraveled with every passing day in the barren wasteland alone, only his own thoughts to keep him company (and the townspeople, who seem mere passing mirages than whole flesh and blood and emotion). This energy…he doesn’t know what it is or where it comes from, but perhaps if he sought it out…

He idly thinks of walking in, letting himself get stung or bitten, if there really are only scorpions or snakes in there. It strikes him that there’s no one else in the world who knows where he is, or cares enough to look out for him. Would there be anyone to miss him? Well. Certainly none who could stop him at this point.

And he did always trust his instincts more.

 

* * *

 

Disappointingly, when he makes his way inside, there’s nothing but carvings on the walls, lion-like faces staring out at him through the dimness. But the prickling glares stir something inside of him, an important shift of pieces slotting together perfectly. There’s writing too, symbols spread out over the rough stone, edging around the images in a language that he is senseless to.

He’s sure he’s the only one who knows of this cave, or places any value to it. It seems forgotten, abandoned. It falls over him then, suddenly, a vague understanding of what must be done. It sits at the tips of his fingers, but he cannot grasp it, not just yet.

He just knows he needs to keep this place safe.

There’s something to be said about finding kin with a pile of rocks, but it washes over him, a line of thought compelling him to cling tight to it, even if it’s just to remember the forgotten. It’s good enough for him. Figuring out what it means could come later.

 

* * *

 

Months speed by like that, Keith the Mechanic’s Assistant overlapping with the Keith trying to find logic and sense in a cave of alien drawings, stacking up pictures and pages of notes on understanding it. All he has learned so far is ‘Blue Lion’, and an ‘arrival’, from what little he can glean of them.

One day, his routine is almost pushed to the wayside by a sudden realization.

He’s in his shack, inspecting the newest image he’d captured in his half-busted, second-hand camera. The picture goes up onto the board he’d acquired, pinned next to ones of similar origin. He looks over his shoulder towards the table to grab the remaining batch, and his attention slides past the calendar on the wall.

He does a double-take when he sees the year, the wrong year, and numbly realizes he hasn’t flipped over the page in too long.

With scrabbling hands, Keith grabs the picture he’d just pinned up and rips it down, squinting down at the date printed in the corner.

22/03/2046. March, he thinks.

Shiro’s birthday. He’d missed Shiro’s birthday and he hadn’t even noticed.

Keith lets the photo slip from his hands. There’s a wave crashing over him, pressure building up in his head and he sucks in air through his tightening throat, coughing as he does.

His eyes stray to that box stuffed under the table, the one he’d forbidden himself from ever touching. This time though, he can’t help but drag it out and dig through it, a man on a crazed mission for something long gone.

The box is half-gutted, contents emptied out onto the floor when he finds the old t-shirt.

It’s soft, stretched out black fabric, still infused with the faded scent of soap and cologne. Shiro’s favourite shirt.

Keith lets his spine thump against the wall as he slides down to the floor and stares at it. He’s rapidly remembering how it lay over Shiro’s shoulders, the way Shiro would tug and roll up the long sleeves impatiently so they would bunch at his elbows. Remembers when Shiro had stained the collar with pasta sauce and been so distraught afterwards, until a friend had rolled their eyes and shown him how to clean it properly. Remembers the last time he’d seen Shiro wearing it, the way he’d fallen asleep in it, looking comfortable and all too happy for a man headed for his death.

Keith buries his face into the shirt and cries, for the first time since leaving the Garrison.

The festering storm of sorrow and rage takes hold of him and he’s choking a scream into the cloth, feeling it grow damp under his cheeks and wishing he didn’t have to see it, wishing he could get it all _out of his sight_ so it would just stop _hurting_.

And once the thought arrives, it has his blood thrumming, palms itching, throat drying up, and he has to move, has to run, has to-

Keith lunges up with an angry shout and throws down the shirt.

He slams the box onto his stupid cement block of a table, grabs all the things Shiro owns – _owned_ , he reminds himself fiercely, _owned_ – and dumps them in. He falters for a moment when he’s sees what sits atop the pile. A purple book, tinged with red and black dye.

No. No, he wasn’t stopping here.

He picks up the t-shirt he’d abandoned and drapes it sloppily over the box, hiding the contents. He didn’t want to see it anymore. He didn’t.

Hefting up the box, he’s bitterly not surprised by how light it is, and concentrates on snatching up the matches before marching outside, to the back of the shack.

And then he’s upending the box onto the ground, not thinking, enough thinking, he’s _done_ with thinking so much, and the match is lit and dropping from his hands, straight onto the meager collection.

He watches it burn for a whole ten seconds, watches the fading cloth catch the flames, like the gentle meeting of shy lovers’ hands. The book is next, picking up the fire with ease, and then there’s a sting in his eyes and he can’t watch anymore.

_What am I doing?_

_What am I doing._

_WhatamIdoing_

There’s no one to hear the cry that heaves up from his lungs when he bats at the fire with bare hands, snatches the book out from the pile and brushes off hot embers from the curling, smoke charred pages. In the smell of burning paper and cloth, there’s the sweetest scent rising, of roses and freesia and unbound grief.

It’s too late though. Too late to salvage the book from the damage Keith’s caused it.

His fingers are twitching without his permission, pressing against the warm, crumbling surface of the paper, against the crinkled dryness of petals.

He’s trembling when he lets it fall open at that last page, to the gardenia he’d added, side-by-side with Shiro’s freesia. The edges of the freesia are blackened, breaking off into ash under his touch.

Fitting, when only one of them is here anymore.

_It’s over._

He lifts the book for one last lingering look over its cover, registers the sight of starry stitches burned away, purple turned black, leaving only red at its center. His vision blurs.

With clenched teeth and resignation, he sets the book in the heart of the flames again and walks away, not letting himself turn back.

_It’s over._

 

* * *

 

Three months later, the arrival he’d been waiting for happens.

Shiro comes back.

 

* * *

 

When they’re alone, away from the prying ears of the three cadets, all Keith can think to say is “it’s good to have you back”. He hears “it’s good to be back”, and pretends to not notice the tension of the muscles beneath his hand, or that cold flash of steely composure (steely limb) he’d seen before Shiro had recognized him. There are scars, and white hair and a pulled-thin look to the way Shiro regards him, and he’s not sure he’s quite ready to know the details of that just yet.

Most of all, he tries not to think of those ashes swept away in the wind.

Right now, there are more important things to worry over.

 

* * *

 

Within days of Shiro’s return, Keith learns this much:

1) Shiro is plagued with anxiety and nightmares haunting his every attempt to rest, which translates to much less sleep than he should be getting

2) His day is spent tracing out threats and the quickest ways to eliminate them. His eyes seek out the doors to whatever room he’s in, aware of the exit at all times

3) He watches _them_ too with that same careful gaze, like he’s waiting for them to turn around and attack him

4) The night owl from Keith’s memories, the happy, sleepy-faced boy he used to know is gone. It’s been drained away, all the light, to be replaced by this person who is constantly awake, constantly alert, constantly on the edge and awaiting even a single sign of danger.

His heart hurts every time he etches out another line in his mental tally, for every change he sees in his best friend.

But as it turns out, Keith is wrong. There are a few things that remain unchanged about Shiro, moments where he can see the old him shining through, melding with the Shiro he sees now.

It’s there when he takes on the responsibility as the Black Paladin, without hesitation, without question, and proves himself capable of it too. When he defends them against the strict Altean Princess’s methods for training and quickly deflects her anger to the side. When he pushes himself harder than anyone, in battle and in practice both, until he’s crashed out on the couches in the rec room, tired enough to sleep right through his darkest memories. When he makes those ridiculous (and _highly wrong_ ) laser gun noises right after asking the team to settle down.

At times though, Keith’s sure that Shiro is avoiding him. It’s like he’s pulling away, further than he’d ever been before. But then he’ll turn around and give Keith this blindingly fond look, hold onto his shoulder longer than needed or sit next to him whenever the opportunity presents itself and Keith would find himself at a loss, not knowing where they even stood anymore.

And through it all, there’s one thing in particular that sticks, surviving the carnage wreaked on Shiro. It stumbles to life in hesitant steps with every day spent away from the horrors of the Galran hospitality, every moment spent with Keith and the others.

It comes awake slow and certain, and Keith has never been gladder for such a realization as the day they’re on a planet with life, and he sees Shiro gazing at the greenery with a slightly lost but content expression.

Those are the spaces in time where he’s reminded, almost painfully, just how much he loves this boy (and of course Keith loves this version of Shiro too, thinks he couldn’t possibly _not_ love _any_ version of Shiro).

Because in the end, nothing had changed. Shiro still loved plants.

 

* * *

 

Every mission has the risk of casualties, even more so when they are only a gathering of seven to their enemies’ millions. They all know that, and if they didn’t beforehand, they certainly know it now, as the Galra ship they’d infiltrated moves into hyperdrive, taking Allura with it.

Shiro is too guilt-stricken, too loyal, team-oriented till the end. He won’t leave anyone behind.

It’s a formula to a sound defeat, and Zarkon (the former Black Paladin, come to take back his Lion) almost crushes them with single-handed ease. They fight and they get Allura back but it’s only by chance they escape at all. The wormhole complicates it.

Their Lions hurtle down together to a jarring fall in a barren planet and there’s nothing green here, no plant life to distract Shiro from his pain or his morbid sense of humor. Keith would give anything for a vine even, if only to shut him up. (Don’t talk like that, stop talking like that, _stop_ -).

“Patience yields focus”, he’d said, and “If it weren’t for you, my life would have been a lot different.”

The rest is unsaid, held tight under his tongue: _I missed you, so much. The Garrison threw me out. I burned your book. I couldn’t keep my promise. I wish you would talk to me. Talk to me, please. Trust me._

_I love you._

He doesn’t say any of it. There’s never a time or place, because they’re always so busy just trying to _survive_.

Olkarian, though, has plenty of flora to satisfy the balance. Keith doesn’t really notice much beyond the initial restfulness he feels from the quiet of the forest, because suddenly they have to worry about the Galra occupying the cities, and the _giant cube of death_ created by the Olkari slaves under their coercion. It was…kind of a big deal.

But afterwards, when they’ve regained their city and Rhiner steps forth to lead her people, the Paladins are left to wait while the Lions undergo repair for the damage they’d sustained. Pidge goes to task in immediately learning all she can about the Olkari, getting sucked into a rapid-fire conversation about the specifics of Green’s cloaking abilities. Hunk is pulled in just as fast when it comes to the mechanical side of things, while Lance yawns and wanders off in search of something more entertaining.

Keith sees Allura, Coran and Shiro busy talking to Rhiner, and he briefly debates joining them, but there’s a numbness encroaching over his brain that doesn’t let him consider it. He turns away instead and heads further into the forest, in the quest for some silence and peace, some time to _think_.

There, beyond the sturdy, wide trees, beyond the plants that were repurposed into weapons, he stumbles upon a glade filled with wildflowers. They’re everywhere, pale yellow, blue and purple, every possible colour, dotting the base of young saplings and hanging down from vines.

It’s not with any real intent that Keith picks up a fallen pink blossom, mind a million light years away. He keeps coming inevitably back to that night. Imagines a fire, a dusty old cabin, the ache of seeing those stars above, on his own. Maybe it was bett-

“Yarengis. A very good choice indeed, Paladin, if you want your hand bitten off.”

Keith yelps at the sudden voice, and he drops the flower just in time to witness it snap to life with a hiss, the tiny teethed-petals nearly catching his fingers. He jumps back from it and watches as it wriggles on the ground for a few moments, before settling back into its previous harmless form.

He takes back everything he’d thought about peaceful, sunshine planets; Olkarion was quite obviously a death trap.

A chuckle from behind him, and Keith remembers the voice. He turns around, and finds an older male Olkari, quirking an amused brow at him (or at least, that’s what he thought it meant. You could never be sure with aliens. What did they even call the Olkari if it was a single alien? Maybe it was like sheep. Sheep was used for both plural and singular…and good thing too, because Shoop was too ridiculous to consider…Shoop).

He cuts off the rambling thoughts just as the Olkari speaks again.

“I am assuming that the Yarengis bloom was not what you were searching for?”

Keith clears his throat nervously, hoping he’s not about to offend the alien.

“Uh no. Not quite.”

The response he gets is a mild snort, as though the alien had read his thoughts.

“You appreciate our flora, nonetheless. Tell me, what were you hoping to find?”

“Well. It’s not really…It wasn’t for me.”

“Ah. For your leader then, perhaps?”

“How did you-”

Despite himself, Keith feels himself blush. He looks at the Olkari and knows he’s completely transparent in front of him. There’s a twinkle in the alien’s eye that tells him the questions are being asked more for propriety than for a lack of knowing. There’s something of that old florist in this alien’s wizened smile.

“I…maybe. He has a thing for flowers, and I thought…”

“Well, then. My name is Prominus, young paladin, and I happen to be viewed as quite the expert on these matters. Perhaps you can allow me to assist you?”

Keith eyes him, uncertain, warring with his curiosity.

“I…I guess that’d be nice?”

 

* * *

 

And that’s how Keith finds himself walking back to the others with a spray of space flowers. They’re gorgeous, there’s no denying it; a rich purple fading to white at the center, and a dark, star-shaped core.

Hunk’s jaw drops at the sight of him. Lance bursts out laughing, howling something about ‘flowers for his hair’, until Pidge swiftly elbows him in the gut and sends him doubled-over onto the ground, groaning. Keith ignores it, focused solely on Shiro, who watches him approach with confusion. He marches right up and thrusts the flowers in his face.

Shiro blinks a few times, eyes crossing at the proximity. He backs up a step and looks at the flowers, mouth going wide.

“Is…is this for me?” Shiro asks, pointing at himself.

Keith twitches, the echo of their past reaching out to briefly engulf him. He doesn’t say a word though, just nods and gestures at Shiro to take it. Shiro looks at him, cradling the flowers in his hand, and there’s a fragility in his gaze that makes Keith’s stomach drop, wondering if he’d made a mista-

“They’re beautiful. Thank you, Keith,” Shiro breathes, smile soft and admiring. Keith relaxes and smiles back. It’s worth the ribbing he gets from the trio, on their way back to the Castle. They don’t understand the significance of the flower, after all.

“It means devotion,” Prominus had said, and that’s exactly what he aims to preserve. This is where he lets go; this is where he will let himself love from a distance and nothing more.

 

* * *

 

There’s a sound wrench to the idea that Keith doesn’t see coming before it’s too late. It begins with the smallest suspicion, and escalates with every passing day, until suddenly the signs are everywhere, each pointing to something he doesn’t like to think about.

From the strange Galran with the blade, who breaks into the Castle and subsequently saves their lives, to his dreams of wearing enemy colours; one among many, raining destruction over the helpless, the undeserving. It goes back further, to the memory of disabling the Galran drones on the Balmera, to the effect of quintessence against his skin.

To Zarkon’s resounding growl during his desperate fight to keep Shiro safe, his bid to cut off the Galran Empire at the head.

‘You fight like a Galran soldier.’

What did that even mean? Keith never gets enough opportunities to figure it out on his own, but more than that, he’s afraid he’ll get exactly the answer he doesn’t want.

 

* * *

 

Luxite. That’s what they’d called it.

His blade sits in his hands, innocuous and eerie for how much it hides. With a mere thought, it extends, stretching out into a lethal sword.

He’s Galra.

He’s Galra, and he has a hastily patched-up wound down his shoulder, scrapes and bruises littering his body.

He’s Galra and he’s shaking, staring down at the blade, when there’s the beep as the door slides open and Shiro enters with a hesitant “Keith?”

Keith flinches and drops the blade with a clatter. Alarm flashes across Shiro’s face, eyed widening, and he walks in cautiously, arms held carefully at his side.

“Hey. I just wanted to check on you. You…kinda disappeared on us without warning. Everything okay?”

Such a broad question: where did he even begin to answer it?

“Kei-”

“I’m fine,” he whispers, voice hoarse.

There comes that peculiar look he’s been seeing since they left the Blade of Marmora’s base, an amalgam of pained concern. Shiro doesn’t stop his approach and Keith lets him get closer until he’s seated next to him, inches apart from touching. Keith remains slumped over his knees, hardly feeling the way his elbows are digging into his flesh.

An arm comes up and over his shoulder, and Keith relaxes, lets it wrap around him and pull him into Shiro’s side.

“Is this okay?” Shiro asks, and Keith nods, lets himself revel in the security, just for now. He’d known, subconsciously. Away from the base, with a steadier mind gaining lucidity the further away he got, with the way Shiro had behaved around him afterwards, everything had become quite abundantly clear.

“That wasn’t you, was it.”

Shiro sighs, his fingers clenching against Keith’s arm.

“No. That was a hologram.”

Keith lets his eyes drift shut, tries to sort through the mess he has become. There’s a nudge to his side as Shiro keeps talking.

“Keith, I _promise_ you, none of what was said in there was real. I would never leave you behind, or deprive you of the chance to learn about your family.”

He nods again, knowing it to be true. Everything during the trials had been a lie, served to leave a sizeable hole in his heart and test how well he functioned.

Well, maybe not all of it. He thinks again of his father, and firmly pushes the thought away.

The lock in his chest eases up at Shiro’s reassurance. But there’s the ragged edges of doubt too, and he lets the silence blanket them for a moment, unsure of how to word what he needs to know. Shiro, always so good, always so understanding, lets him have it.

Eventually, he speaks; opens his eyes and plucks up the words as well as the courage to let Shiro hear them.

“…are _you_ alright? With…with this? With me?”

A light squeeze over his arm again, before the hand drifts up and into his hair, against his forehead, guiding him to tuck his head into the curve of Shiro’s neck. He does so with no protest, wearily leaning into the proffered comfort.

“I’m alright Keith. You know that. And _I_ know _you_.”

Keith swallows, pushing down on the thick heat filling his lungs. He won’t cry. He refuses to, not in front of Shiro. He has to change the topic, anything better tha-

“The Garrison kicked me out and I burned your book.”

Shit. Shit, shit, _shit_ , why of all things had he chosen _that_.

Above him, Shiro goes very still.

“What?”

No. _No_ , he’d messed up. He’d messed up, badly.

“Keith?”

Keith shakes his head, clenching his fingers in Shiro’s vest when he makes to pull back to look at him, knowing he won’t be able to do this with those grey eyes staring him down. He forces himself to speak, rasping over the halting and miserable phrases.

“Your book…the one with your pressed flowers…I. I burned it. I didn’t mean to, I just. I got…It was bad. After you were gone, it was really _bad_ for a while and the Garrison couldn’t deal with me either so they threw me out and then all I had was my shack and your things but one day, I couldn’t…I couldn’t bear the sight of it and I- I. I just took it and-“

Shiro’s hand is stroking over his back suddenly, a soothing rhythm that breaks him free from the fountain of words spilling forth.

“Keith. Keith, easy, just _breathe_. It’s _okay_.”

The weight on his lungs lifts as Keith sucks in air with a desperate gasp, turns to bury his face into Shiro’s chest, praying he won’t mind. Shiro simply gathers him closer, setting his chin gently atop his hair. His hand is a healing touch, and Keith hardly feels the ache of his bruises.

“Hey…just listen,” Shiro murmurs, “Keith, the book _was_ important to me but only as far as it concerned you.”

Keith nearly stops breathing again.

“What?” he asks, voice cracking. Shiro shifts a little, the hand on his back pausing in its motions before he continues talking.

“You told me that I’d changed your life back at the Garrison, but Keith… the same holds true for me. If it wasn’t for you, I would have crashed a long time ago. You know how it was then, with everyone pushing the mission and their expectations, envisioning a legend they could claim to know or have taught. But you were one of the few who really believed in _me_.”

Shiro moves, pushing Keith back so he can cup his face in both hands. Keith stares at him, cheeks flushing, sees the way Shiro’s brows are crumpled in a soft kind of sadness.

“The book was important…Because _you_ gifted it to me, and because filling it side-by-side with you was one of my better memories. One of the ways I could cope, that was separate from my duties. But it doesn’t matter to me more than you, Keith. I don’t care that you burned it. I just want you to be okay.”

Keith breaks. There’s no other word for it. His hands fly up to clutch at Shiro’s and he knows there are tears falling, trailing over their tangled fingers, but he doesn’t care.

“I loved you, you know,” he blurts, and he doesn’t look away from Shiro, keeps his gaze focused right on those grey eyes. “I still do. And for the longest time, I could never say anything, but I thought, once you came back…but then you didn’t. I had this whole thing, I. I put a gardenia in your book-”

“Keith,” Shiro chokes out, and Keith knows he gets it. Knows he’s understood.

He doesn’t expect it when Shiro leans in and kisses him.

Keith gasps, a little hitch in his lungs, and then his mind catches up and he’s surging into it, kissing back with all he has. Shiro runs fingers through his hair, sliding his lips against Keith’s, slowing his enthusiasm to guide them into something softer, sweeter. Keith trembles, pushing himself closer into the heat of Shiro’s mouth, dizzy with simple want.

Neither of them is willing to separate but for the burning need for air, and they break away, Keith pressing his forehead against Shiro’s. They’re panting, caught up in each other’s spell and orbit.

“I love you too,” Shiro says, expels with his every exhale, “I love you too, Keith, I _love_ you.”

Keith makes an odd noise, shaky and wet, not quite believing what has just happened.

The corners of Shiro’s eyes crinkle at the sound and he leans forward to peck Keith again, plants a kiss over his cupid’s bow, his cheek, his forehead, until Keith is breathless from laughing instead.

When they finally settle, it’s with their fingers looped around each other’s, a quiet descending over them that Keith is almost afraid to ruin. He’s relieved when Shiro is the first to speak.

“You know, the freesia…they’re supposed to represent friendship and trust, in the language of flowers.”

Keith arches an eyebrow at that, but lets him continue.

“I kept buying them because they were my favourite but, they were always meant for you, you know?”

Shiro wasn’t going to let this night go without making Keith flush at least one more time. Well, two could play that game.

“I know they’re popular wedding flowers,” he comments blithely and is all too pleased to see Shiro turn red and splutter.

“I-I wasn’t-!”

Snorting, Keith lifts their joined hands and dares to kiss the metal fingers that entwine over his, chancing a quick glance up. The tender smile he receives in return is reassurance enough.

“I didn’t think I could ever have this,” Shiro says quietly, freeing one of his hands to run his thumb over Keith’s lower lip, “I wasn’t sure if…if you ever. Well…But now I’m. I’m thinking it’s okay to let myself be selfish, just this once.”

Keith kisses the pad of his thumb and tugs Shiro close, nestling himself into the crook of Shiro’s neck again.

“You are allowed this, Shiro. And…and so am I. In a way, I’m kinda glad the Garrison kicked me out. I don’t think we’d have found each other otherwise.”

Shiro frowns, face darkening with the reminder of what had led them here.

“What the Garrison did…it wasn’t right.”

Keith can’t feel the same outrage anymore though, can only shrug his shoulders in reply, when it all seems so long back, so unimportant after all he’s been through.

“I guess it was just easier for them to set me aside as a loss,” he mumbles, but Shiro shakes his head.

“Their loss, Keith. It was entirely their loss, and they’ll have realized it by now.”

Keith pauses before he concedes, but only partly.

“That…that applies for the both of us,” he says, firm enough to invite no debate.

Shiro smiles, shifts to plant yet another kiss to his forehead and Keith blushes again. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of it, this casual yet wholly meaningful exchange of affection.

Finally, Shiro makes to stand up, lifting Keith up with him.

“Come on. Let’s get you to the cryo-replenishers,” he says.

Keith tries to grumble but he’s countered with a long kiss that leaves him just a little dazed, Shiro smirking at him in satisfaction.

“Don’t think I forgot about your injuries, Keith. We have to get you checked over before we head back to the others. We do have a plan to execute, after all.”

That, combined with the kiss, makes Keith perk right up, and they head to the med bay together, hands linked and swinging between them.

For the first time in over a year, Keith feels real hope.

 

* * *

 

He’s gone.

He’s gone.

He’s _gone_.

Blood pounds in his ears, urgent and useless, much how Keith feels at the moment. He sits back in the Black Lion’s cockpit long after everyone has left, staring at the empty console where, just an hour before, Shiro had sat and led them to victory.

Not again. This couldn’t be happening again, not _again_.

Why them? Why was it always them?

_Shiro._

 

* * *

 

Keith doesn’t let himself languish for too long.

When he emerges at last, his eyes are red-rimmed but dry, filled with a steely determination. He finds his team on the Control Deck, each of them looking back at him with the same expression of loss and grief that he remembers seeing reflected in the mirrors at the Garrison.

“He’s not dead. We’re getting him back,” he announces, loud and unafraid, and it seems to bolster something in them. Hunk and Lance straighten out of their drooping postures, while Pidge stands up, eyes flashing. Allura watches him a moment longer before she nods, face set in seriousness. Coran sighs, knowing what this means for his Princess and the Paladins.

Keith is steady and unshaken though, secure in his belief. This time, he’s not alone in knowing Shiro is still alive.

This time, Keith’s going after him.

 

* * *

 

The Black Lion guides them into the blank plane of space, glittering purple with starlight and expanding galaxies. They follow the hints of instinct and the quintessence that mimics hers, and that’s where they find him, caught in the placid void where the Lions cannot move, but smaller beings may still survive. Weakened, but still alive.

Keith is the first to reach him, jetpack propelling him forward until he’s close enough to touch, to grab and reel him in. He grasps Shiro’s face, frenetic energy racing through him until the moment Shiro opens his eyes.

“If you ever leave my sight again, Shirogane, I swear…” he sobs, too full with a tremulous joy to even finish the threat.

There’s that grin, soft and boyish, just for Keith.

“…I knew you’d find me.”

Keith thinks he would collapse if there were a solid surface beneath him.

“It’s so good to have you back,” he rasps, enclosing them together into a tight embrace. He’s not ever letting go, if he can help it.

Shiro’s face is wet as well, when he responds.

“It’s good to be back.”

**Author's Note:**

> Flowers used in this fic:
> 
> Freesia - represent friendship, purity, trust and are very popular wedding flowers  
> Gardenia - white gardenia symbolise purity as well, used to carry messages between lovers. The gardenia with the yellow base is also noted to mean secret love  
> I added a Heliotrope too - Often represents devotion, named after the legend of Helios and the water nymph Clytie who remained devoted to him, despite being abandoned by him.
> 
> Comments super appreciated, they feed my soul! <3
> 
> Edit: Forgot to mention, but all credits for the shoop thing go to @heyitscmei ;D


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